Empowering Women : Legal Rights and Economic Opportunities in Africa

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Abstract

This book looks at the effect of legal
and economic rights on women's economic opportunities.
It focuses on entrepreneurship because women in Africa are
active entrepreneurs, and the links between property rights
and the ability to enter contracts in one's own name
affect entrepreneurial activities. The laws that are the
focus of this book are not business laws and regulations,
which are generally gender blind and presuppose that
individuals can own property or enter into contracts.
Instead, the book examines family, inheritance, and land
laws, which oft en restrict these rights in ways that hurt
women. This book surveys constitutions and statutes in all
47 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to document where gender
gaps in these laws impinge on women's legal capacity,
property rights, or both. The book also looks at some labor
law issues, such as restrictions on the types of industries
or hours of work in which women may engage and provisions
for equal pay for work of equal value. These laws affect
women as employees and influence the attractiveness of wage
employment versus entrepreneurship. They were also selected
because they affect the choice of enterprise women may run.
The equal pay for work of equal value provisions are also of
interest as an indicator of the recognition of women's
broader economic rights. This book provides a series of
indicators that show whether a country does or does not
provide particular legal provisions. Several points are
worth emphasizing in interpreting these indicators. First,
the indicators are binary; there is no attempt to
differentiate between small and large gender gaps. Second,
the indicators are not used to generate an index or
otherwise aggregate the indicators; no weights are given to
differentiate the relative importance of different sets of
laws. Third, the indicators reflect whether certain legal
provisions are recognized in a country or not; because the
link between the indicator and gender gaps is not always
straightforward, care must be taken in making value
judgments. Although some indicators reveal that women are
treated equally or identify gender differences in treatment,
others do not. Although recognition of these sources of law
can have implications for women's rights, it does not
necessarily imply that women's rights are stronger or
weaker. Conversely, the inclusion of some protections for
women's rights may reflect not the strong standing of
women but rather the fact that gender equality is not seen
as axiomatic and needs to be explicitly stated. Second and
third chapters focus on formal rights and how they have been
upheld in court decisions. Fourth chapter examines the gap
between laws on the books and practice on the ground. Fifth
chapter looks at how both the substance of law and
women's access to justice issues can be improved to
expand women's ability to pursue economic opportunities.